missing textures after having installed UOP & QTP3

[necrophyte]

after having installed oblivion & shivering isles + the most recent official patch, i first installed the UOP (3.2.0), and then QTP3 + the QTP3 UOP32 Compatibility Patch (copied the files to the corresp. folders).

first everything worked perfectly and looked really nice, but then i noticed that the green robe of Alga was transparent, and even worse, a whole "cell" on the oppposite coast right to the east of the imperial city, next to Fort Magia, was "missing", ie. the ground is gone and when i step on it, i fall down into the water.

img822[dot]imageshack[dot]us/img822/5768/screenshot21n.jpg
(sry for posting a non-uesp.net link, but i think its essential to show this - hope its no problem)

any idea, what i could have done wrong, or whether this is a known issue, or why it could have happened? and how to fix it?

thanks!

[H8Ball]

Hi,

A random exterior cell occasionally failing to load/render is a known "bug" that's never been fixed. It's due to Oblivion losing track of that cell in it's cell cache. This happens to me occasionally as well, and it has nothing to do with UOP, QTP3 or any other mods. If you fast-travel away then come back, the land often reappears. Failing that, exiting the game and re-running it rebuilds the cell cache again from scratch. The bug isn't permanent and only affects an occasional random cell during a gameplay session. It's harmless, which is why Bethesda obviously never gave it top priority.

As for the transparent item, make sure you have the tiny ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated mod installed (available from TESNexus). This ensures that meshes/textures in folders external to the BSA files are correctly loaded. Common symptoms... Missing meshes (yellow star-shaped object with the text "I'm a missing mesh!" on it), missing textures (plain colour texture generated on-the-fly instead), clothing or equipment worn by yourself or NPC's being invisible resulting in missing body parts, i.e. hands, arms, torso, legs, feet. All of these symptoms are typically due to Oblivion's buggy archive invalidation code getting itself confused and "thinking" things are missing. If you see any of the symptoms described, installing ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated fools the code into working correctly, so things are always rendered properly.

The only time it doesn't work is for mods that install their own unique meshes or textures (that don't exist in the BSA files). If any of them are missing, you'll still get the symptoms until you install the missing stuff.

If a mod comes with its own BSA file, Oblivion won't use it until you add a reference to the BSA to the SArchiveList= line in Oblivion.ini. Alternatively, you can use BSA Commander to extract the BSA contents to the Oblivion\Data folder, where they'll then be in external folders and will work just as well from there. I always use the alternative method. In fact, I extract the mod's ZIP or 7Z file to a temp folder, extract the BSA contents to the same folder, delete the BSA, then repackage the mod as a 7Z file. That way, when I install the mod, it behaves just like any other mod that doesn't have a BSA file.

Note: ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated IS just a tiny BSA file containing a dummy asset. You DO need to add a reference to it at the START of the SArchiveList= line. The fact that it's the FIRST BSA that Oblivion searches is what cleverly fools the archive invalidation code into working correctly and THEN searching in external folders BEFORE it goes on to search the original BSA files. That way, meshes/textures IN external folders will always override existing copies in the BSA's.

Hope this helps.

[necrophyte]

first of all, thank you very much for the thorough explanation!


however, i have restarted the game several times, and the cell east of the imperial city has been missing all the time. and this has never happened before, and ive been playing oblivion for some 150-200h on 3 different rigs, ie. 3 different installations, so far, but all without any unofficial mods/patches. and now with UOP & QTP this is the first time i am experiencing this.

regarding the missing green robe - i have done what i was told inside the QTP readme. now i have done the same, but checked the archive alteration bubble instead of the archive invalidation, like it is described under installation in the description on the download page (tesnexus). now the green robe of Alga is there! but the missing cell is still missing.

just one question regarding something i havent seen so far, this is a screenshot from inside the house where Alga & her husband (H...) live - is this rock or silver ore, or whatever, supposed to be here? i cannot interact with it, its just there like a rock or grass outside..

img203.imageshack[dot]us/img203/4955/screenshot22fl.jpg

thanks!

PS: how can i get authorized to post links to non-uesp.net pages? the FAQ dont mention anything about that being prohibited. i would just need it for the screenshots.

[H8Ball]

Once you have the ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated MOD installed, you don't need ANY other form of archive invalidation. ALL such options in OBMM should be disabled to prevent them conflicting.

I presume you've saved right next to the "hole"? I don't know whether Oblivion saves any cell cache data (I'd do that, as it would help to avoid rebuilding the entire cell cache from scratch). Just in case it does, saving right next to the "hole" may be the very action that's causing the cell cache error to persist, because it's reloaded from your saved game.

A trip on foot or horseback AWAY from the "hole" overwrites the cell cache with new cells, hopefully overwriting the one that's in error so it's no longer IN the cache and will be loaded from disk next time you approach it. Forget about the "hole" and do some adventuring making sure you avoid fast-travel for a while. THEN save, exit, re-run Oblivion, reload and fast-travel back. Hopefully, the "hole" will now have disappeared. For a persistent "hole", make a good long trip on foot or horseback, say from Leyawiin to Anvil. This will help to overwrite the entire cell cache.

Near Fort Magia, you said? If it's the cell I'm thinking about, it's a strange one on the shore East of Imperial City that just has a habit of pulling a disappearing act every so often. As I say, occasional "holes" in the landscape are due to a minor cell caching bug which has nothing to do with UOP or QTP3 (at least to my knowledge, anyway). They've been occasionally happening to me for ages, both before and after I installed QTP3 Redimized.

Note: QTP3 Redimized is just a version of full-blown QTP3 with smaller, optimised textures, suitable for 512Mb video cards when full-blown's require a 1Gb card. In fact, Redimized stands for Reduced and Optimized and it applies to textures ONLY. Both versions install exactly the same optimized/fixed meshes, and none of them are landscape meshes.

The "holes" aren't fatal, since they eventually disappear once their cell cache entry has been overwritten. If I see one, I don't worry about it. I just detour around it. If it's in the way of what I'm trying to do, I forget about it and do something else instead. Next time I pass by, it might be a couple of days later and, sure enough, the "hole" is gone.

Hope this helps a bit further.

[necrophyte]

hey, thanks for another great answer

i already noticed several hours ago that the hole reappeared - it was fort magia itself.. probably saving a bit further away from it made it appear again, so i assume you are right.

what about the screenshot inside the house in bruma where Alga lives? do you know whether this "rock" on the counter is supposed to be there?

thanks!

[H8Ball]

If Fort Magia itself is the affected cell that keeps disappearing, it's not the cell I was thinking of. It might be an orphan reference that's causing it, possibly from a mod that's been uninstalled but still has references in your savegame (they're invisible in-game, but still there).

Try using Wrye Bash to clean your savegame. In Oblivion, save twice in a row (creating a backup savegame in case the clean-up causes corruption). In Bash, on the Saves tab, right-click the latest of the two savegames and select Remove Bloat. This will remove orphan references and hopefully prevent odd glitches in-game. And if it corrupts your savegame (very low risk, but it sometimes happens), you always have the backup savegame to revert to (before the clean-up).

Note: While you're in Wrye Bash, you may want to do a Repair Abomb on your savegame as well. This won't cause any corruption. It simply resets the frame counter that later causes stuck/slow animations (after playing for about 200 hours on average). It depends on your average framerate, so WHEN the "Abomb bug" strikes is different for every player. On high end PC's with average high framerates, it may strike after as little as 100 hours or less! I do mine about once a week, or when it exceeds about 30%, and my total gameplay time is over 500 hours with no problems.

Also, if you're using Bashed Patch in Wrye Bash, have you done a Rebuild on it recently after installing/uninstalling a new mod? If you haven't, strange in-game effects can result because Bashed Patch itself may override a new mod's references or contain orphan ones from an uninstalled mod, and the incorrect changes make their way into your savegame. ALWAYS do a Rebuild regardless, whether you're sure it's necessary or not. Best to be thorough, just in case.

Tip: To SAFELY uninstall a mod that adds new items or spells, do the following... Unequip ANY of the mod's items and empty your inventory of them (i.e. put them in an unsafe container, one that WILL respawn). If you've enchanted any mod items, or original items with mod spell effects, sell them. Now wait a FULL 3 days so ALL Merchant and unsafe container inventories reset and ALL corpses and their loot items are removed, "deleting" them from the game. Once you've "taken out the trash", save, exit, disable the mod, re-run, reload, save TWICE, exit, THEN uninstall the mod and rebuild Bashed Patch. NOW use Repair Bloat on one of the TWO savegames. This procedure forces the game to mostly remove mod-related references from your savegame, and the Repair Bloat then removes any it's missed. There's less chance of savegame corruption when Repair Bloat has less to do.

The big rock on the counter? There's actually THREE I can see there, two tiny ones as well. I'll have to check my own game to see if they're present. If not, they may be references added by a mod that's installed on your system but not on mine.

[necrophyte]

sorry, i seem to have expressed myself a bit inaccurately - not the hole reappeared after restarting the game and saving on a distant location from that place, but fort magia appeared again, ie. the hole "disappeared". so now everythings fine

and no, i installed oblivion freshly several days ago, and then only UOP & QTP. and my saves are from my previous oblivion installation which didnt have any mods installed.

regarding the rock - yes, its a big one and 2-3 small ones. its just a bit odd since i never saw such a rock i am completely unable to interact with inside a building, and especially not on such a counter where usually there are interactable items only.

thanks!

[jiso]

Quick question regarding ArchiveInvalidation Invalidated: Does "ALL such options in OBMM...disabled" mean that "BSA redirection" should be ticked, rather than "BSA alteration", basically resetting to defaults?

[ParanoidAndroid]

I think you can use BSA redirection with OBMM and then you're fine, you don't need any other archive invalidation tool AFAIK.